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Media History

LIT 132 CM-01: Film History II

  • Instructor: Morrison, James E.
    • Tuesday/Thursday; 2:45-4:00 p.m.
    • Room 15, Roberts North
    • Media History

This course surveys the history of cinema as art and mass medium, from 1965 to the present. Topics such as the rise of independent filmmaking in America, the conglomeration of the studios, and European resistance to Hollywood’s domination on the world market are considered in social, cultural, and aesthetic terms.

LIT 134C CM-01: Spy Films

  • Instructor: von Hallberg, Robert
    • Tuesday/Thursday; 4:15-5:30 p.m.
    • Room 103, Roberts North
    • Media History

A seminar designed to explore the aesthetic achievement and social impact of film as an art form. Subjects for study include such topics as specific film genres, the work of individual film-makers, and recurring themes in film. Each year the seminar concentrates on a different area – for example, “Film and Politics,” “The Director as Author,” or “Violence and the Hero in American Films.” Repeatable for differing topics. The topic for spring 2024 is “Spy Films”. This course focuses on spy-thrillers. The films are entertainments, but they deal directly with political subjects; they imagine ways of being a patriot, an effective agent, a reliable civil servant, and of pursuing the interests of a state beyond lawful, acknowledged procedures. We will emphasize interpretations that engage these concerns, and look to some essays by political philosophers to guide our analyses.

MS 070 PZ-01: Media and Social Change

  • Instructor: Lamb, Gina
    • Tuesday/Thursday; 1-15-2:30 p.m.
      • Room Q120, West Hall
    • Thursday; 7:00-9:00 p.m.
      • Room Q116, West Hall
    • Media History or Media Theory

Overview of movements, theories, and methods employed by media makers committed to social change. From Soviet film collectives, through Third Cinema movement of 60s, to feminist, queer, and youth video activist movements in the U.S. that have laid the groundwork for the rise of socially driven media collectives and campaigns today.

MS 072 PO-01: Representing Britain

Instructor: Long, Andrew C.

  • Monday/Wednesday; 1:15-2:30 p.m.
  • Room 08, Crookshank Hall
  • Media History

This course is about the intertwined representation of immigration, race, and class in post-World War II Britain, a tracing which gives us insight into the present Brexit moment. Specifically, we will address how these issues were represented and understood separately and then together from the arrival of the passenger ship the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948 followed by immigration from South Asia, the Troubles of Northern Ireland, all the way to the Parliamentary Brexit vote of 2020. We will discuss and analyze films, literature, pop music, and television from this near 60-year period, though we will build towards and follow from Britain in the 1970s.

MS 090 PZ-01: Ecodocumentary

  • Instructor: Kaneko, Ann
    • Monday/Wednesday; 1:15-2:30 p.m.
    • Room A103, Atherton Hall
    • Media History or Media Theory or Intermediate/Advanced Production

In recent years, as the Anthropocene has become a central framework within the academy, the subfield of ecocinema has developed within media studies. This course will focus on ecodocumentary. Topics include environmental/manmade catastrophe, industrialization, anthropogenic climate change, interspecies relations, ecojustice, environmental racism, consumerism and waste. Readings will draw from a range of fields including ecocriticism and ecocinema studies. Supported by the Robert Redford Conservancy (RRC), this course will teach students the history, theory and production of ecodocumentary. By the end of the course, student teams will have collaborated with RRC partners in the Inland Empire to create short documentaries.

MS 092 PO-01: Principles of Television Study

Instructor: Engley, Ryan

  • Monday/Wednesday; 11:00-12:15 p.m.
  • Room 08, Crookshank Hall
  • Media History or Media Theory

Television is now at the forefront of political and aesthetic culture in a way that used to be reserved strictly for film, literature, and visual art. Seizing this contemporary moment of TV’s (seemingly) widespread culture legitimation, this course examines the historical development of television study, focusing on concepts such as: flow, immediacy, genre, platform, narrative complexity, liveness, ideology, and bingeing. Letter grade only. Prequisites: MS49, MS50, or MS51.

MS 114 PZ-01: Film Sound

  • Instructor: Ma, Ming-Yuen
    • Wednesday/Friday; 11:00-12:15 p.m.
    • Room Q116, West Hall
    • Media History or Media Theory

An intermediate level media studies course exploring how sound functions in cinema. This course focuses on sound as media and the relationship between sound and image through topics including the history of sound technologies and the so-called ‘coming of sound;’ film sound theories, such as French composer Michel Chion’s influential work on audio-visual relationships and the human voice in cinema, as well as feminist film theories on the female body and voice; film music and audience reception; sound space, and the evolving practice of sound recording and reproduction in film. These topics are examined through reading assignments, screenings and listening sessions, in-class presentations, writing and sound recording assignments. This class encourages a critical, creative approach, non-traditional solutions, and awareness of both historical contexts and theoretical frameworks. The course fulfills the media theory and media history requirements for the Intercollegiate Media Studies (IMS) major and minor. Prerequisite: MS49, 50, or 51; or some introductory level music theory courses.

MS 124 PZ-01: K-pop and Digital Culture

  • Instructor: Acosta, Andrea
    • Tuesday; 2:45-5:30 p.m.
    • Room Q120, West Hall
    • Media History

This course will explore K-pop as a global popular media genre that must be placed at the center of our ongoing conversations on contemporary digital culture, art, and media. From artist production and multimedia performance to online fan communities and affective response, Kpop prompts changing ideas of what digital media and its audiences can look like in the contemporary era. Pairing formal analyses of K-pop productions with broader considerations of the social, political, racial, and intercultural dimensions of the genre and its fandoms, we will explore K-pop as a phenomenon that asks useful questions of any media student.

MS 130 SC-01: New Media Research Studio

  • Instructor: Wing, Carlin
    • Tuesday/Thursday; 1:15-3:45 p.m.
    • Room 214, Lang Art Bldg
    • Intermediate/Advanced Production or Media History

New Media Research Studio is a class dedicated to the applied and participatory study of new media, materials, environments and platforms. It uses the term “new” to pivot around the historical conditions and everyday practices of contemporary media. Students will explore the social, cultural, economic, and political dimension of phenomena such as social media, mobile gaming, live streaming, digital fabrication, internet art, automation, and augmented reality. Through immersive independent investigations that will take the form of “travelogues,” they will learn how to define and develop projects that employ historical, ethnographic, and artistic methods of research and production. Prerequisites: MS 049, 050, 051, and an Introductory Production class in Media Studies.

MS 140 PO-01: Screening Violence

Instructor: Wynter, Kevin

  • Tuesday/Thursday; 2:45-4:00 p.m.
  • Thursday; 7:00-10:00 p.m.
  • Room 10, Crookshank Hall
  • Media History

The focus of this course is on representations of violence on screens and its widespread consumption. Through a range of theoretical texts and in conjunction with detailed analysis of select films and media, this course examines and debates the various, competing accounts of depicting, disseminating, and consuming images of violence. How did the omnipresence of scenes of violence on screens become a transnational phenomenon? Why does it have the power to move, excite or titillate us? What is our responsibility to images of violence, if any? These are some of the questions we will address as we chart the history of screening violence from early film and media to the present. Letter grade only.

MS 173 HM-01: Exile in Cinema

  • Instructor: Balerio, Isabel
    • Tuesday/Thursday; 8:10-9:25 p.m.
    • Room 2465, Shanahan Center
    • Media History or Media Theory

A thematic and formal study of the range of cinematic responses to the experience of exile. Exile is an event, but how does it come about and what are its ramifications? Exile happens to individuals but also to collectivities. How does it effect a change between the self and society, homeland and site of displacement, mother tongue and acquired language? This course examines how filmmakers take on an often painful historical process through creativity. Among the authors to read are Aime Cesaire, Edward Said, George Lamming, V. S. Naipaul, Med Hondo, and Hamid Naficy; films to be viewed focus on Africa, Asia, and Latin America.